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Twitter trials new search and trend functions

Micro-blogging site does some more tinkering

Twitter is
testing new search functionality and page layouts aimed at boosting productivity
and usability for its rapidly growing user base.

Co-founder Biz Stone explained in a
blog
post that, after experimenting with the search box at the top of the page,
the firm has decided to embed it in the sidebar down the right hand side. The
relevant tweets then appear on the homepage.

"This way of experiencing search is aligned with Twitter's simple approach,"
he wrote. "By default, the tweets you see on your home page are from sources of
information that you have curated over time - in other words, the accounts you
chose to follow. When you search, you're asking for any tweets that contain the
word or phrase you're interested in right now."

Other new features coming "to everyone as soon as possible" include the
ability to save a popular search word or term, which will then appear in the
sidebar for easy access.

Trending Topics, meanwhile, will offer words or terms related to subjects
being referenced most frequently on Twitter at any particular time. A selection
will appear in the sidebar for users to click on and investigate tweets related
to those subjects.

The new services have not been without their teething troubles, however.
Although currently on offer in beta to only "a small subset of Twitter users",
the functions appeared not to work when vnunet.com tried to use them.

At the time of writing, vnunet.com was still waiting to hear back
from Twitter about the problems.

In related news, Twitter is recruiting for a range of new roles at the
company, hinting at its future plans. According to its web site, the firm is
looking for an operations engineer, product manager and software engineer for
search, as well as a business intelligence software engineer and a user
interface designer.